What follows is a collection of random thoughts about Bin Laden’s death, in hopes that I can finally turn them off long enough to get some sleep.

I feel strange, but not alone, that my first coherent thought after hearing about Bin Laden’s death was to wonder how much it would help Obama’s re-election chances. I say first coherent thought because my first-first thought was something along the lines of HOLYSHITBALLS.

I’ve seen a bunch of footage of people celebrating in the streets of Manhattan and DC, and a bunch of people on the internet get pissy with those people. I figure the internet-pissy people can shove off for a while. Yes, it’s tasteless to celebrate someone’s death. At the same time, I don’t know that I believe that the people in the streets are celebrating so much as mourning in a particular way – not mourning Bin Laden’s death (that, I think, is probably difficult for the best of the best of us), but mourning the people who lost their lives because of Bin Laden’s actions, and because the events today brought all those feelings up again. I hope Bin Laden’s death (I am getting tired of typing that phrase) will give some people a better sense of closure than they’ve ever been able to have post-9/11. And, well, I hope they can sleep a bit better now.

I feel fairly disgusted that, as according to this Reuters Business article, oil has already dropped and the dollar has already risen based on the news – like if I needed any more proof that our whole economy is a collection of smoke and mirrors, this sealed it.

I remember driving by Ground Zero a month or so before Brownie and I moved out to KS. We saw it at night, two giant holes in the ground surrounded by fences with bits of flag and flowers and tiny memorials, all brightly lit by harsh construction lighting. It felt haunted. I can’t imagine living, seeing that every day, and not feeling at least some measure of grim satisfaction knowing that the guy who started the whole thing is finally dead.

I wonder, now that Bin Laden is dead, who the History Channel will use for the role of “Third Antichrist” in their documentaries about Nostradamus and whomever else. The triumvirate has been Napoleon/Hitler/Bin Laden for so long, I can’t quite picture it being anyone else. I imagine the writing staff there is going to be busy.

And not finally, but maybe finally for the moment, I can’t feel happy myself that he’s dead. But I’m emphatically not sad about it either. I don’t know how to feel – his death feels completely abstract to me, but it’s abstract in a way that I’m processing emotionally more than logically. At the same time, the emotions aren’t settling into anything identifiable. So I feel like I’m spinning, and it’s frustrating.

With that, I’ll attempt some sleep. My sincere and heartfelt thanks to the troops who do their jobs so well.

ETA: One more thought: it is repulsive that “Jack Bauer” is trending on twitter right now. Seriously, people, this shit isn’t a television show. Although, as Simon Pegg pointed out (also on twitter), some of the more excitable parts of the media are acting like we just won a particularly difficult video game.